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While life for a factory worker in China may be awful, there’s a
reason why these jobs are filled. Contrary to a lot of news
stories floating around out there that characterize wages as
“pennies” per hour are a bit misleading. Obviously the comparison
to Western wages is irrelevant; it’s all about standard of
living. And for many factory workers, those wages are certainly
better than what they’d get back home on the farm. Working
conditions, of course, are another story.

Unfortunately, there is another piece to this puzzle, and that’s
inflation. Wages have been on the rise for some time, but price
hikes in China over the past few years in areas like food and
housing have facilitated even more dramatic wage increases.

The annual average growth of China’s minimum wages should be at
least 13 percent in the five years to 2015, according to a
government job market plan for the period published on Wednesday.

Raising pay is key to the jobs blueprint, part of Beijing’s 12th
Five-Year Economic Plan, which aims to boost employment in the
world’s No 2 economy.

Minimum wages in China range from 1,500 yuan ($240) per month in
Shenzhen to 870 yuan in Chongqing. The government wants minimum
wages to be 40 percent of average local salaries by 2015,
according to the plan posted on its website (www.gov.cn).

The average monthly wage of China’s 158 million migrant workers
in 2011 surged 21.2 percent from 2010 to 2,049 yuan.

In the five-year period from 2006 to 2010, the average minimum
wage in China increased 12.5 percent per year, official data
showed.

So part of this is an attempt to keep up with inflation. However,
that probably doesn’t account for the entire move here. Is the
standard of living for a minimum wage laborer here rising, and
will it continue to rise in the out years?

Should this be factored into all those Apple/Foxconn stories that
suggest industrial workers in China are akin to slave laborers,
working for a pittance?